Worst Rebreather Experience Ever

Steve

Thanks again for telling that story Jas. I have a few diving stories I could tell but think that the worst Rebreather experience is burying friends. A story like Jason's tells this very well without actually sinking the black....... Thank **** it didn't end that way.

Jas, We have never sat down and had the beer we have promised each other a few times over the years. I'm not sure why I feel so strongly about spending some time chewing the fat with you but I'm committed to it. Let's make it happen.

Cheers

Steve

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WARNING: I contain occasional coarse language, extreme sexual references, nudity, and adult themes, which may offend some people - Usually churchy types.

andy2000

Mine has go to be a dive off plymouth on my inspiration classic both my handsets went down after a considerable time spent at 80m i would have had just under an 1hr of deco to do at that point and then when i went open circuit it nearly doubled not nice when your in the middle of a shipping lane!Lesson learnt its not how much you carry but whats in the cylinders that counts

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Ouroboros 24

koputai

Yep, good idea Steve. How about Friday night, we can meet half way, somewhere around Woomera?

Cheers,
Jason.

richie

well my worst and only incident on the ybod was i was doing my deepest dive i had done 116m of malin head , i changed to 1.3 at 20m on the way down, when i got on the wreck looked at handsets which was showing 1.1 then dropped to 1 bar ppo2 it was clear that the solenoid had not fired for some reason so i had to manually inject o2 for the entire dive all 4hrs of it bar the 6m stop which i flushed with o2 anyway. after we found the wire to the solenoid had borke lucky one of the lads had a soldering iron. nothing like a bit of added excitement hey

narked at 90

mmmmm i had a few but the worst by far was test diving my FFM oc/cc conversion
dropped down to 6m with safety diver and all was fine apart from the area was busy so i said go deeper, at 20m i set a direction with buddy and headed off, but after a few Min's turned to buddy to say things are not right but he was no where to be seen......now my problem was CO2 so now finding my buddy was gone put me in a dilemma and also put my breathing through the roof, apparently i was seen swimming around in some distress flushing my mask, until i could not look for the guy any more....great safety diver,
no matter how much i flushed the mask the CO2 would not go, so i switched to oc through the FFM but this made very little difference and it became obvious(but not at the time) that the problem was a CO2 loop in the mask.
so i started the assent which was more a crawl up the rocks as my control had gone and the most frighting experience of my life carried on,
i could not remove the FFM as i could not hold my breath long enouth to change to a stage tank and i was trapped in a small space that was killing me that i could not get away from..
i arrived on the surface in a bit of distress where i ripped of my FFM and took in Good fresh air, i took a few minutes to get my breathing down to a point where i could talk and swim back to the key side,
at this point it became apparent then that allot of people had seen what was going on and a emergency call had gone out and a rescue team was on the way to me, there may be people on here that saw me that day....well i know there is and i also know the safety diver is also a member.
after i surfaced and was confronted by safety teams i had to tell them i was missing a buddy and i was ok, this then kicked in a full on search with dive search teams assembled and sent in.
i then started the next part of my little night mare, at this point i totally believed my safety diver was ok as he was a deep caver that dived solo.
but in the next 30 Min's i was getting more and more worried(to say the least) i was trying to go back in but that was not an option or 500 people would have given me a kicking!
he finally surfaced after 30mins after me to be greeted by some angry resume staff....... he was given a lifetime ban from the dive site.
(remember he was there as safety diver) after we had descended and i said i wanted to stay in a shallow 20m urea he turned around and just fcuked off to do his own thing and went deep, leaving me to take the hit...
there would be another story of course but i can only tell my one.
kind and humble regards john routley

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teomannaskali

It seems that the OK sign has become reflex that you can do without thinking about it...

For serious dives my friends and I have a different 'OK' sign.

You show a number to your buddy and he as to answer with the same number +1.

I say 2 he says 3. That way you can check if they are ok or if they are just reflexing without meditating.



Teoman

David Heavey

Hello
Interesting is it not, with all the pages and pages of posts relating to CCR risks,correct operating / diving techneques and training, having the right kit configeration, not doing this and not doing that, being in the right or wrong gang (sorry club / training agency), that when we are asked about silly moments we have had, that we can hardly fill a page.

Perhaps rebreather diving is so safe no one has incedents.

Anyway thanks to those who shared there thoughts.We all learn something even if we are to timid to talk about our own dumb moments

What about me, well, I am a mouse like all the others.
David

pchanning

C02 for me. Nasty. Cyclic intensifying fear of losing control is just awful/ terrifying. Impending doom. A voice on each shoulder: "you are gonna die!", "shuttup, dont listen to him, you'll be alright", spin, spin. Frightening. A brain bend sucks too. Snorkelling sometimes looks like a perfectly adequate way to explore the underwater world.

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Cheers
Paul

The key to enlightenment... is survival.

jradomski

sound like a description of an event that a friend of mine had on his MK15.. He said he felt helpless as well..

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Joe Radomski
CCR Trimix Instructor Trainer
ANDI Instructor Trainer Director #10

All posts are personal opinions and DO NOT reflect any affiliated agency unless specifically stated.

iratnl

I've only got 35 hours on my KISS Sport, and I've already had a total flood due to the exhale hose completely detaching itself from the red pod; somehow, it must have rotated during kitting up (I always get my buddy to check the connections again after I have kitted up now); all predive checks passed ok.

It's a good job I followed my training; my buddy spotted bubbles at the 6m bubble check, and was gesticulating wildly at me; she then 'touched' the connector, which caused it to pop right off !

As soon as I heard the 'glug glug glug' I switched to OC on the bailout valve to composed myself, then decided to try the loop again (I was still at approx 6m); trying to breathe felt like trying to suck water up a thick hose (which is exactly what I was doing !). It was obvious that it had flooded big time, so I switched to my bailout tank and ended the dive.

I'm actually quite glad that it happened so early on in my rebreather career, as it showed that if you follow the training, things should work out ok; I guess if it had been the inhale hose that had disconnected, and at depth, it might have been a bit more stressful. Now I'm almost expecting it to flood every time I use it - which is good (I guess)...

After stripping it down, drying it out and replacing 1 of the sensors, it was ready to dive from the next day and for the rest of the holiday.

Check those pod connectors before jumping in